AssassiNation: Crimson Soil
by Velatieren
Summary: No hope this time. No humanity this time. No heroes this time. Only an Avatar of a wrong man in a shuttle straight to Hell...
1. Part 1: Tunning

The small room was being lighten up by a single, yellow bulb, hanging under the ceiling. The room was more like a prison cell than a hotel apartment, but it was enough. It had to be enough for some time. The only furniture was a table under a wall, facing to an unmade bed by the opposite wall. There were two doors in this room - one going out to the corridor and the second one leading to a claustrophobical bathroom. A lone laptop was glowing faintly on the table.

A clinking noise of a key, being placed in the lock of the door echoed in the room.

A well-built man with dark, short hair, bright, green eyes and a stubble on his face went into the room, scanning it with a bored look. He had grey jeans, black, heavy, leather boots and an undone, black, corduroy jacket, under wich was a red T-shirt with logo of a for long forgotten rock band. He looked for his fourties, though he barely was twenty five years old.

" Some rest. At last..." He said in fluent Polish. He wanted to lay down on his bed after a whole day of travel, when suddenly he heard a well known noise, comming from the laptop. When he was taking it and sitting on the bed, he grunted something about the spam, but then he saw the sender of a new e-mail - "Resource Development Administration".

" Americans? What the hell would they want from me?" He said in his native language, adding some mean epithets silently. The whole message had only two informations: a phone numer and a name: "Michael Whitemond". On the bottom, the Postscript was attached: "PASSWORD: Time of Contempt"

"Password in English. How typical. But it's correct, after all. Damn, looks like no rest for me this time. Fu*ck." He grunted and turned off the laptop, putting it back on the table. He stood up and bent down by the bed, grabbing an ordinary, touristic case from under it. He put in on the bedclothes and opened it, showing it's contents - some clothes and an old photo of a girl on the top. He took it all out, putting it away, showing the main contents beneath - a silenced pistol, a sniper rifle, few professional knife sharpeners and a whole collection of knives and blades - from combat knives of all kind, through the throwing knives and fine engraved daggers, finishing on two, old machetes.

Time to go.

Money don't grow on trees.


	2. Chapter 2

New York city from that hight looked like a forest after a great fire. Grey buildings like bushes and branches covered in sparks of smoldering neons and ash particles of cars between them, carried by the wind of traffic. Behind the window of the office of RDA administration skyscraper was standing Jeremy Ron - the Head Security Administrator - in his best suit. He was a tall, white haired old man, experienced by many wars in his life. Behind him stood a long, wooden table with comfortable chairs around it - but only two of them were occupied.

"So what are we supposed to do? Our Pandoran colony has fallen, the last ship from there lifted off a month ago. We have NO men out there and we have to get it done as fast as possible." Said an obese, bald man with nervous voice, sitting at the end of the table.

"Do you have any news we DON'T know, Miles?" Answered the second executive, a bit short, blonde man, sitting on one of the seats on a side of the table. "I think we have no choice - we must send a shuttle in the nearest future, before the Ventrue Star with the surviviors arrives. We won't be able to hold the failure on Pandora in secret for any longer after their arrival. Goverment will send their own ships out there just after they find out what happened, so we have to act fast. I say we should send another military group out there"

"That would even be a good idea, Michael, but one shuttle won't be able to take enough soldiers to hold even the landing pad alone, especialy when the Na'Vi are treating us as enemies." Said Jeremy, turning to his intelocutors.

"So maybe we should send a few, but fine men?" tossed Miles "I'm sure we will find some good rangers in our forces, who would be able to finish this."

"Drop this one off" Said Jeremy. "Let us be honest - we've got only some dropouts from regular army now. All our finest men were immediately assigned to Pandora colony, where they were needed. Now they are dead or will be available after six years of travel. Besides - there is no ordinary soldier, who would be able to infiltrate that clan and the remains of our base without being spotted. The only rangers I knew, who could do that, were in english S.A.S. and russian Speznaz forces. Both of them can't help us now."

"So i think we have to use my Plan B." Answered Michael with a spark of hope in his eye. "Do you remember our phone conversation, Jeremy?"

"Come on, you can't be serious! I thought that you were joking with that mercenary assassins!" Shouted desperately Jeremy.

"What are you talking about?" asked Miles, thrown off the balance.

Michael pulled off a PDA from the pocket of his suit, turning it on.

"You see, we can hire some help from the outside. Mercenaries are just perfect for that kind of job - professionals, born for such missions, don't care about time of the job, can keep the secret, will do anything for the right price, they've got nothing to lose and are available all the time. I think that's the only solution for out sitation."

"You want to tell me, that you will equip a bunch of rogues with our most expensive Avatars? No way, Michael!" Answered doubtly Miles.

"Not a bunch, but one of them. I know how painful it is to create one of that blue zombies, plus we have to pay the assassin himself - and I'm sure it won't be cheap" Said Michael. "So, I've digged the files of three mercenaries I found..."

"TWO of them" Jeremy interrupted him. "Richard Abrams has been sentenced to electric chair one week ago."

"Damn it. He was the easiest one to bring..." said Michael. "But we still got two more of them on the list. One is from Poland in central Europe, Dariusz* Morawski"

"Pole? You know how they, Slovaks and Chechs are reacting to Americans after the conflict about the oil in the Bieszczady* Mountains?" said Miles.

"Yes, I know. But you forgot, that we've got money. Much of it. Besides, I think he is the best one now for this job - though he actively participated in the mencioned war against us. Before the conflict outbreak, he finished studies at specialization: film directory, on one of english universities. In free time, he was performing parkour and free running, also was an active member of K1 fighters club. Just after he finished his studies, the conflict has blown up the rest of his life. Kind of literally. He lost his brother in one of the first encounters between our and polish army. After that he felt into some kind of weird nervous breakdown. Anyway, a month later everyone known him as ''The Demoman" or simply "C4 Guy" - he had an unofficial record at blowing up american ammo depots, vehicles and aircraft in the time of conflict. They say it was like Fourth July everynight, though he was seen only once, as he specialized in stealth and sneak. He was rarely using fire arms, he preffered close combat and bladed weapons to kill essential, american targets. He was the one who killed, inter alia, general Ridgemont.

"Wait, that was HIM?! The guy who passed all the soldiers in the biggest military base, killed Ridgemont and his five bodyguards with a knife and got away unseen?! I thought it was just a rumor." Miles said shocked.

"Yes, that was him. His sabotage acts cost us many millions of dollars and many fine men out there. Though his actions were essential for the win of Poland, Chech and Slovakia, he was never awarded with any medal - instead of it, he was sentenced to be shot, the reason is still a secret. But somehow he escaped the military camp and started a new life as an outcast, becoming a paid assassin - as this was the only thing he could do in his life. Looks like he liked it. Here is the end of the official info, but many people say he spent about a half of a year in the remains of african jungle, where he killed one of the drug mafia bosses and his co-partner the same night. He was caught only two times. First time he was betrayed by his partner in buissnes. He escaped the prison with increased rigour. In four days. Then he was caught by the second time, as he surrendered to the police by himself - only because the cheif of the prison in the interview said, that ''he wouldn't be able to escape for the second time". Well, he did. For the next day he was already gone. If there is anyone who is able to sneak between Na'Vi on their own teritory - it is that Pole."

"And who's the second one...?" Asked Jeremy.

"Well, he's Canadian, Glenroy McKay. He was in special forces of... Wait a second..." Michael looked closely into the monitor of his PDA, then turned it off with a frustrated move of hand. "OK, nevermind. McKay has commited suicide, he shot himself in the head two days ago."

"You don't have any other offers? Really...?" Asked Miles.

"You know how hard it is to find a safe contact with a mercenary assassin?! He is the only one left. Shall I call him?"


	3. Chapter 3

Interrogation room was quite spacious, but there was only one, heavy, steel table with one microfone and two chairs, standing in the middle. A camera was lazily turning around under the ceiling. Dariusz Morawski was sitting at the table, facing the door of the room. He was in his black, corduroy jacket and the same T-Shirt he had a few days ago. He was looking curiously with his bright, green eyes at blonde Michael Whitemond, sitting on the other chair. Right behind the assassin, RDA guard with an assault rifle was constantly looking at Dariusz with nervous spark in his eyes.

"Good day, Mr. Morawski. I won't beat around the bush as you know what is going on, after my e-mail. We've got an... unusual proposition for you. You will have to... hmm... Delete two persons and recover one, small item from them..." Michael started diffidently.

"What's so unusual in this? Get to the point, paper-pusher, I didn't come here over the ocean - which have you polluted - to listen to the mystic bullsh*t." answered a bit irritated Dariusz in fluent english, but still with central Europe accent.

"Have you ever heard of Pandora, Mr. Morawski?" If Michael was nervous, he didn't show it.

"Yea, few times in TV news. A small planet, which still has forests, like the one in Africa, right?."

"That's right. You see, that ''targets'' are placed right there, on Pandora. That's why ths proposition is so unusual."

"Wait a second. You want ME to take a twelve year trip to that forgotten by God and people planet just to kill two people and get ONE thing? You have to be kidding me!"

"We have thought about an eventuallity of your negative attitude. Our offer is simple: we will give you your normal stake for double assassination. Multiplied by exactely two hundred times, payable in advance. What do you think, Mr. Morawski?" Answered Michael, confidentaly.

"Hmm... Twelve years, the most dangerous enviroment known to man and American's offer. You would have to pay me at least two times more than you said."

"Four hundred times normal stake?! Well..." Michael looked really confused "Ehh, allright, but only half of that will be payable in advance."

Morawski opened his eyes in pure wonder.

"Damn, you guys really hate that two wretches I have to bump off." Dariusz laughed. "OK, I will do it, just tell me what to do and give me some wheels to Pandora"

"Fantastic." Michael noded and pulled off his PDA, showing a photo of two, similar Na'Vi males - both of them had a quite big piercing made of an animal's tooth in their left ears. "That's Tarik and Kux'Ri - or however their names are spelled. Brothers. They had a close contact to our scientists before the war between us and Na'Vi outbreaked. They took one item with them..." He changed the photo to a picture of a disc with yellow RDA logo on it. "This hard drive. It's essential for us to recover it. Both of them must be eliminated and the disc must get back to us before the goverment's crew will get to Pandora. There is also one more important thing I want to tell you." He changed the photo for a picture of Jake Sully and Neytiri. "That female Na'Vi is Neytiri, the Avatar is Jake Sully - they are the leaders of the clan of Tarik and Kux'Ri. Do NOT kill them on any conditions, or your mission will be terminated. They are important, if we want to get back to Pandora someday and Na'Vi would never forget their death, succesfuly preventing us from rebuilding a new colony. I think that's all you have to know for now, the rest of situation will be explained to you on Pandora. For the preparations time you can dwell in the headquater's barracks of Security under the name "Jan Kowalski". But before we will finish, there are two more matters - first you have to give us your blood sample, so we can create your Avatar."

"Avatar? You mean that project, about which was that loud on the internet one year ago?"

"Yes, exactely. You have to function normally in Pandoran athmosphere. The second matter is - what equipment will you need? Just tell us about it, and our specialists will take care of reconstructing it in the size suitable for Avatar."

"Well, that will be easy - just take my case which I had to turn in at the enterance. I'm taking everything what isn't a cloth or a laptop."

"You mean that pistol, rifle and a colection of knifes?"

"Tell me, why I'm not surprised that you have already searched through it?" Answered Dariusz ironicaly. "Yes, my gun, sniper rifle and blades"

"Well, alright then, you've got it. Everything from your equipement will be scaled to fit your Avatar. I think that's all for now. We will call you when you'll be needed." Michael wanted to stand up, but then he suddenly stopped, like he was thinking about something, then sat back down and turned off the microphone on the table.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" He said with the curiosity of a ten years old kid.

"Sure, for that amount of money you pumped into my account, ask about whatever you want"

"Is that true, that assassins like you have a plan to kill everyone they meet? Jut asking out of curiosity"

Morawski smiled impishly and leaned his elbows on the table.

"Well, to be honest, I knew how to kill you, the guy behind me and the two guards outside in the first minute you took me here."

"What?" Michael was simply shocked by what he just heard.

Morawski pulled off a small, metal disk, size of a walnut and put it on the table.

"This is an EMP-G, personal version of electromagnetic grenade. This little thing disables all electric devices in one metre radius at impact. The guard behind me made two, gross mistakes: he is standing way too close to me and he's pointing his gun at the ground, not me. I will tell you, second by second, what would happen if I wanted to kill you: First second: I'm silently pulling off this EMP-G under the table. Second second: I'm getting up, turning around to the guard behind me, while throwing EMP-G at the camera, guard starts to lift his gun, but he knows it's too late. Third, fourth and fifth second: I'm taking the gun from the guard by a simple maneuver, then snapping his neck with his own rifle. Sixth second: Blowing your head with cal. 5.56 mm bullet from the newly obtained rifle, the two guards at the other side of the door hear the noises and a gunshot, starting to get inside. Seventh second: I'm overturning this reinforced, steel table, guards are starting to fire. Eight, nine and tenth second: at some point they are stopping their fire, checking if I'm dead. When they are close enough, I'm throwing the table at them, desorienting them and gaining time needed for shooting both of them, then running away. Have a nice day, mr. Whitemond"

Dariusz stood up and calmly walked away through the door, leaving Michael with expression of utter shock on his face and passing the two guards standing next to the door. One of them noded to him in greeting. Michael Whitemond didn't say anything.

He knew it was the right man for this job.

* * *

* spelled [Daryush Moravski]

* spelled [Byeshchady] Mountains


	4. Part 2: Overture of Sorrow

A blue glow gently woke him up.

All the stories about the crio sleep in space were true. And they weren't too optimistic. Six, long years have passed, though he felt like he has waited for the start of the shuttle five minutes ago. But in that five minutes, his head had enought time to explode with headache and the content of his stomach to officiate some kind of a weird, feral, ritual dance.

The blue glow was shinning through his closed eyelids.

They made it to Pandora. Venture Star II has just went into the orbit.

He opened the eyes, looking around. He was lying in his steel coffin at zero gravity, embraced by the blue light.

He felt movement and a powerful, white light stung his eyes. The crio operators were opening the ice tomb, where the Hell's messager was buried.

The methaphor "Opening Pandora's Box" seemend ironicaly for him right now.

He smiled gloomily.


	5. Chapter 5

"Alright, the rest of the crew is pulling your avatar's tank out of the shuttle right now" An old scientist said, sitting at the small table, facing Dariusz, who looked a bit bored, drinking coffee from a plastic cup. The scientist - Gabriel McAtkins - was quite tall, with short, hoary hair and an evenly cropped beard. Though he was old, the smart sparkle still shone in his eyes. He was talking with a broad, australian accent and was looking quite relaxed and lighthearted.

Dariusz cast his eye on the rest of the room - they were alone in the barracks of the of the link station - a steel container with some beds, tables and refridgerators. In contrast to the Site 26 station, used by Jake a long time ago, this station didn't have any windows, to increase the safety - but the rest of the equipement was mainly the same.

"Everyone else is unpacking the gear, so we are here alone, but you seem to feel quite comfortable near me. You are not afraid, though you know, who I am. I'm glad to see, that there is at least one person who is willing to talk with me." Said Dariusz, smiling wry.

"Yes, I noticed how the others treat you. I don't need to be afraid, because simply if you killed any one of us, you would never get back to Earth. Also, Dar - can I just call you Dar? - To be honest, have you seen them? The people they gave us are just a bunch of wussy nerds. You shoud've seen their faces when they got the word that they are going to Pandora with only three soldiers and a mercenary, serial killer onboard. Everyone in the briefing room had a wet diaper that time. That three guards they gave us as ''security" aren't also too tough - I bet they never participated in a bigger military operation than a bar fight. That's why I have to ask you a favour: please, do not fart around and finish your job apace, because with that kind of team we won't survive even a week in here."

Dar bursted into a deep-felt laugh.

"I knew you were special just after I saw you." Assassin said, finishing his coffee "I though the same thing when I met the rest. Tell me then, what makes you that much different from the others?"

"I was a field medic for nine years in the eastern war, also I was the head scientist in the government's ALS department for eight years. That means: if our boys found something what looked like an egg or any kind of a life form in space, WE were the ones who were opening it. Son, I've seen some really nasty situations and deaths of people with a various level of gore in my life. I think that against the public opinion, Pandora is nothing in comparison to the constant bombing runs or the failure of "Xenomorph" project, if you asked me. Here at least you can SEE what want's to kill you." Answered Gabriel.

"I'm starting to like you, oldie." Dar smiled to the scientist. "You seem to be tougher than the rest, so I think you know, what they taught me about Pandora out there on the training - some biological stuff, history, human influence on their culture, religion, Avatar project details - all that populistic crap they mainly talk in media. I need some useful informations: How do I swiftly kill a Na'Vi?"


	6. Chapter 6

The incubation module of the station was split into two individual parts by a glass wall - on one part there was the main link bed to connect the avatar, and the other one was the room with the tank of the Avatar himself. The whole module was illuminated by the blue, calmative light comming thom the tank. Dar's Avatar was calmly floating in the blue liquid, like a child in mother's womb.

Elena was crouching next to the link, turning some switches and cables in the opened dashboard on one of the sides of the device. She was dressed in a typical military green clothes. She had medium lenght, red hair and a pretty, naturally cheerful face, even when she was angry.

"Work, damn it!" she sweared. "Why does the junk always have to break down when I'M around?! My vacuum cleaner is more compatibile than this pile of..."

A loud hiss from the hermetic door filled the room, interrupting her tirade. Elena rose her head, to see who's comming.

Green eyed man with dark, short hair went inside, taking off the exopack from his face and taking a deeper breath in of the filtered air.

"Good evening" Dar started with a warm smile. "Gabriel told me..."

"Good you're here." She said without bothering to say hello. "Give me a hand and hit that red button over there in the same time when I connect this plug here."

Dar came up to the control panel of the link bed and did what she asked for. After a second, something clanked and a silent buzzing of the starting computer could be heard.

"Thanks." Elena said, wiping down the sweat from her forehead "I would be a goner if that didn't work. Again. I hate this hi-tech junk."

"Well, at least it's working fine for now, I guess." answered Dar, optymistically. "I haven't seen you before. You're one of the shuttle pilots?

"Not quite. I was one of the the engineers for every various works and repairs on board - if someone's microwave brakes down or the main engine of the shuttle is about to explode in a nuclear blast, we are the ones who are going to fix it. They sent me to the surface few hours after the first squad, because we had to check everything on the shuttle first. I'm Elena, by the way. Elena Baselard. You're looking pretty tough for a scientist." She added, off-handedly, looking at his well-built muscles and casual clothes.

"Well, to be honest, I'm not a scientist. Dariusz Morawski, at your service. I wanted to check my Avatar before they will plug me."

Elena was shocked. She looked quickly at the Avatar in the tank - it looked exactely like him (exept the obvious differences). How could she didn't notice it?

The assassin went closer to the incubator, civilly not paying attencion to her utterly surprised and disoriented expression.

"Everyone is reacting on me the same way. They all are looking on me like on a monster. I already got used to it, don't trouble yourself about it."

Elena wanted to answer something, but the whole scene was interrupted by the hermetic door getting open for the second time. Gabriel Atkins went in, adjusting his beard after the exopack's mask.

"Good day, Elena. I see you have already met Dar." Gabriel said with an amused smile on his face. "And how do you like your second body, Dariusz?"

"Quite big copy of me, I admit." He looked at the Avatar for the second time. "Hey, wait a second..."

Dar took a closer look at the right arm of his Avatar, then he rolled up right sleeve of his own shirt.

"You have to be kidding me! They even took care of copying my tattoo?"

Indeed - on both Dar's and Avatar's right biceps an emblem of one, short sentence written in an old handwritting font, surrounded by thorns was visible:

"Kyrie Eleison* "

McAtkins approached the Avatar to look at the tattoo.

"Yes, we took care of every detail. We thought that you will feel somehow better with this. Besides, I didn't even know you're a Christian." Gabriel said doubtfully.

"Why do you think I shouldn't?" The assassin answered with a question.

Gabriel smiled with a shadow of irony.

"Well, the main point of Christianity is to get to the Heaven, after living a good life. It's pretty hard to get there when you are making a public limited company out of the Fifth Commandment, you know."

"And who said I am praying for myself?" Dar was immovable and his voice grave. "I know I won't make it to Heaven. At best I will get to the Purgatory, but I doubt it. Everyday I'm praying for the ones, whose lives I have to take. And for my brother I lost."

"Hmm... That's not a bad attitude." Answered Gabriel, understanding Dar's point of view. "I won't negate your belief, I see some right in your words now. Anyway, about your Avatar: by that six years we have upgraded the DNA mixing system, so we could make your avatar a bit lighter and a bit stronger than an average Na'Vi at the same time. These aren't any great differences, but that's better then nothing. Also we were able to make your Avatar's biolumiscent light less bright, so you will be able to sneak more easly. That's all we could do for your advantage, the rest depends on you and your skills. Oh, and by the way - when your mission is over, your Avatar can just die - you won't need it anymore, so don't worry about it."

"I'll keep that in mind, doc."

On the other side of the glass wall, the doors opened and two scientists in white, tight, hazard suits went into the chamber with the tank. One of them approached the intercom on the container's walls to communicate with the other site.

"Everything's fine, doctor McAtkins. We are about to begin the drying procedure. Elena, we would appreciate your help here, someone has to calibrate the pumps and adjust the liquid's pressure before we are able to pull him out."

Elena went to the intercom and answered.

"OK, I'll be there in a second" She turned it off. "Well, I'll better get going. Someone has to take care of the mechanical side of your birth, Dar."

She directed her steps towards the door. Before Elena left, she turned her head back, as she heard Dar's voice, supported by a friendly smile:

"It was nice to meet you, Elena."

* * *

* "Kyrie Eleison" - latin sentence for "Lord, have mercy"


	7. Chapter 7: Intermezzo I

Intermezzo I

"This contract was an oportunity to sever my past. This last mission was like, I dunno, a bright ending of a long, dark tunnel - you can see the end, but you know you still have some distance to walk. Or run."

Dar's Avatar was standing atop of one of the floating mountains, hight above the forrest. The sunset light was flooding the landscape with a blood colored glare. The first sparks of bioluminescene were waking up down below.

He had cyan camo pants with two sheaths and a holster attached to them - first two with combat knives and one with silenced, half-automatic pistol. He hadn't any shirt, his queue was tied around his left arm to be able to run more comfortable.

"You know, Jake, I am an assassin. My only purpose is to eliminate the target. Everyone despite me. But I like this job. If you asked me: "Do you regret your past" only answer would be ''no''. You know why?"

Dar turned to face Jake Sully, standing few meters behind him, listening to his words. He was holding his bow down, as if he was facing a friend.

"Because I think I wasn't bad. Yes, sometimes I had to kill an innocent, who just knew too much. But I was mainly killing mafia bosses, drug lords, corrupted politicians, arms dealers. I knew that with every bullet placed in my target's head, the world was becomming a bit better place. I don't know how many wars have I prevented by killing a politician. I don't know how many people have I saved from mafia. I don't know how many teenagers have I saved from drugs. But I knew that my job was essential to the society. I was like... a cleaner. No one respected me, but try to imagine how would the world look without any cleaning."

"But still, what about your morality? Weren't you feeling anything when you were pulling the trigger?" Jake asked.

"Morality?" Dar's voice sounded a bit unnerved. "I know there is no such thing as morality since I saw my brother's death. Since I became an assassin"

Dar couldn't hide the pain he felt when he was talking about this.

"He was a soldier in the war between America and Central Europe. He was going back home, as our mother died and he wanted to be on the funeral. I saw only a recording of what happened. His brigade was going back to the base, when they felt into an ambush. He tried to get out of the car, but it was already too late." Every word he was saying with more power, as if he wanted to throw it out of himself. "An explosion tore his both legs and arm off, leaving him crippled on the ground, but he was still alive... he tried to crawl away in shock with his remaining arm... American soldiers appeared from the ditches... One of them stood over him, looking down, as he tried to miserably get away from him, crwaling with one hand... the soldier just stood there and... and he laughed. "Look guys! This worm is trying to escape!" he said. Then he put his boot on my brother's back and blew his head off with a shotgun, laughing all along. You will never know what I felt then. That one shotgun shell killed all of my morality, turning it into a burning nest of pure hatred. Since then, you know what I felt, when I was pushing a trigger to kill an enemy soldier?"

Jake didn't answered anything.

"Recoil"


	8. Chapter 8

"Allright, now try to gently get up. Steady!" One of the scientists in biohazard suit said, holding Dar's Avatar arm to aid him.

The tank with blue liquid was replaced with a large, unfolded laboratory bed on which Dariusz's Avatar was sitting in laboratory clothes. Deep blue light gave up it's place for the white glow of medical aparatus. On the other side of the glass wall, Gabriel, Elena and few more younger personnel and engineers were bustling arount the link bed.

"Are you feeling OK?" the same scientist asked, after Dar got up in his Avatar body. He was tottering, but somehow could stand under his own steam.

"Yea, I think so. Just a kick-a*s hang-over, as you said, Charlie" Dar answered, trying to recover his balance.

"That's good. Lack of side effects, not the hangover. Now let's check your body's efficiency. Just a few, simple tests." said the scientist named Charlie, taking his notepad from the table next to the lab bed.

The works around the link bed came to an end and all the personnel around it went to the glass wall to look at the Avatar.

"It reminds me a bit of Phobos and Deimos from the Greek mythology..." One of the assistants said to Gabriel. He sideglanced at him.

"Quite accurate comparison, Richard" He answered, looking back at Dar's Avatar. "Quite accurate..."


	9. Chapter 9

"OK, this is your gear. Everything scaled to your new body" Said Elena, pointing on the two, large, steel chests and one smaller container by the wall, outside of one of the shacks, which was used as a temporary storage. The bigger crates were looking more like small troop carriers than personnal chests. They whole camp was situated on some kind of a meadow inside the deep woods of Pandora.

Dariusz in his Avatar body - which was weraing cyan camo military pants and no shirt now - lifted the lid of one of the crates.

He saw everything he had in his old touristic case. He pulled off the silenced pistol - now the size of a standart RDA machine pistol - examining it closely.

"Come on! That's just nasty! They enlarged the caliber too?!" He asked in confussion. "It's shooting friggin anti-tank machinegun cartridges now!"

Indeed, the caliber of the pistol was considerately increased to simply inhuman size, as one bullet from the gun's clip was size of Elena's hand.

"Trust me, you'll need it. Everything you can see on Pandora is MUCH tougher than on earth, besides - it's really hard to penetrate the carbon fiber skull, so we had to make the caliber bigger. In spite of that, we also upgraded your silencer, so now the gunshot is even more silent than from your old pistol." She answered and pointed on the bladed weapons inside. "Besides of that, all your blades are exactely the same, exept of the steel they are made of - we made them from 168CM steel, hardened to 50-60 HRC. Knives from that steel are used by every spec-ops on Earth, because it's almost impossible to break it. It has ten year guaranty of razor-sharpness also."

"Now that's what I like" He answered and smiled happily "And what's in the second chest, if everything I wanted is in this one?"

Elena just laughed mirthfully and opened the second crate.

The container had only two chambers. Both of them were full of ammunition only in two calibers - the one used by his pistol and the one used by hs sniper rifle. The bullets were literally spilling out from the chest. It looked like a stereotypical treasure chest from old movies, almost shining with golden glow of reflected daylight. Several mags to his guns were attached to the lid of the chest - already loaded with ammo.

"Oh. My. F*cking. God." Dariusz was looking on the chest with absent look.

"Ha ha ha! You're looking exactely like I imagined, when you saw this" Elena said, laughing. "I also looked like a zombie when I saw that. I know, RDA has just too much pocket money"

"Yea, right..."

After a few seconds of silence, he just attached the holster of his pistol, two sheaths with combat knives and a kukri* machete to his trousers, not adding any comments to the amount of ammunition they pumped into his chest.

"Alright, so we have already passed the weapons, now the rest of your equipement. Quite standard, to be honest." Elena said, opening the smaller container. "A rope, first aid kit, multi-tool, old-type compass, in case your PDA stopped working, your communicator and now the most important thing: The PDA." She said, pulling off the device. "Do not lose it. Here you have everything you t want to know. You've got the Pandoran Survival Guide, GPS, emergency communicator, pandora's encyclopaedia, Na'Vi dictionary, biographies of important Omaticaya members with photos, maps, tactical informations... Well, it's easier to list the things it hasn't in it. I think the only thing it can't do is to wach dishes. It's made of the same steel as your knives and the screen is almost indestructible, so you can even scramble eggs on it and it wil still work."

He took everything she mentioned and adjusted the belt of his pants to the heavier gear.

"You know, Elena, If I wasn't 5 light years from Earth in a giant, blue guy's skin, loaded with ammo, I would gladly ask you if you've got a free evening" He said laughingly.

Elena looked at him with surprised expression on her face.

"Going out with you? Though you're much nicer than I though, I wouldn't feel too comfortable."

"Don't worry, I never harm anyone I like. Besides, I think this is my last contract. RDA pumped me up with enough money to buy a whole Moon colony, so I won't need to ''work'' anymore. And so I thought about settling down somewhere, buying a nice farm and live like an ordinary guy. Or something like that."

"Hmm... I would have to think about it." She answered and blinked to him. "But for now Gabriel is getting mad about every minute wasted here, so it'll be better if you get going now."

"Right. The faster I finish my job, the faster we'll all get back home."

* * *

* Kukri Machete [sometimes ''kukhri''] - a machete with characteristic blade shape, maximalizing it's hacking power


	10. Chapter 10

The Hell's Gate base was bathed in the last sunrays, proclaiming the arrival of dusk. The most of the machines and buildings were overgrown with the mosaic of rust, moss and creepers. Only the most vital machinery was still working. The old walls and turret outposts were cracked from the powerfull roots of giant trees, growing ruthlessly around the facility.

The Jungle didn't forgot about it's legacy, brutally taken by man.

None of the Na'Vi hunters, left around the rooftops of Hell's Gate to guard the remaining humans noticed the tall silhouette, swiftly slipping over one of the walls, getting into the old magazine area unseen.

"OK, doc. I'm in the Hell's Gate. Getting here was easier than I thought." Said Dariusz to the communicator on his neck, hiding behind one of the crates covered in moss, across from the enterance to the main building.

"Don't be so surprised, nothing important happened here for six years and no one expects anything unusual." He heard Gabriel's voice. "I'm sending you the photos of personell that knew Kux'Ri and Tarik and are still in the Hell's Gate. Two of them are scientists and the other two are other Avatar drivers. The scientists are Norm Spellman and Max Patel and they can be anywhere in the Hell's Gate, so finding them can be a problem. The Avatar drivers are Lucy Benson and Patrick Weaver. This should be a bit easier, as in the evenings they are in the avatar compound area, so my advice is to go there at first. Just check your PDA for the photos and Hell's Gate map. Also I've got a good news for you: Don't ask how, but Charlie made it to connect to the old satelite systems and we are able to view the real time thermovision map of the area. Just ask if you'd like to know what's around you. Oh, and one more thing. I've got a small request to you: please, don't kill anyone of them. I know them personally, Lucy and Max were my friends at the university. And Norm was helping me cheating on the colloquiums there, to be honest. Send my regards to them if you can."

"He he, alright. Killing anyone here wouldn't be useful anyway." He answered, pulling off his portable computer, checking the new files. "You told something about the thermovision map. Just tell me what's on my way to the compound."

"Sure. Looks like only a one, Na'Vi camp. They've got a fireplace, so we don't know how many of them are there exactely, but I guess about three or four, maybe less. Also if everything will be fine, Charlie will be able to give you the direct access to the thermovision. If everything will be fine, I repeat."

"I think I can do without it, but it could be helpful."

"Good to hear that. Now, what the hell are you waiting for? Move your a*s, kid."

"Yea, I miss you too, grandpa." Dar answered jokingly, moving on, quickly sneaking between the shadows of the twilight in the avatar compund direction.


	11. Chapter 11

The two Avatars - female and male - and Max Patel were walking towards the longhouse, passing the even rows of plants in the garden part of the compund. First bioluminescent lights apeared, contrasting with the deepest shadows of the daytime - the late dusk.

"Everyone else is already out of the linkroom. I'll wait for you there" Max said, stopping in front of the avatars' house. "I'll be waiting for you in the linkroom, just park your avatars and we'll get something for supper. I'm starving"

"Just give us about an hour." said Patrick, in his Avatar body "We'll just... go for a walk around the garden. Right, Lucy?"

"Yes, it's a really nice evening today" She agreed.

"The same as every evening in the past month" answered Max , looking at them from above his glasses. "But OK, You've got half an hour. And remember - your Avatars aren't toys"

"Yes, we know, Max" Patrick said, laughing. "You're repeating it for three years"

Max just turned his head up, sighting with pity, and walked away. Lucy and Patric went in the oposite direction, to the denser garden part.

Suddenly, the scientist felt a small prick on his back.

"Now turn left and go right into the shadow of the bushes." Dariusz said, holding the tip of the avatar size scaled combat knife on Max' back. "Just do what I say and we'll be fine. Just answer me a few questions."

"Who the hell are you?!" Max whispered hysterically.

"You don't want to know how many people asked me this question with that tone"

"So... what do you want from..."

His sentence was interrupted by the ambiguous giggling comming from the direction of the garden avatars went to.

"What the...?" Dar asked, half confused, half amused. "Are they...? As Avatars...?"

"Looks like." Max answered.

"I never thought about... Well, nevermind. I need you to help me find two Na'Vi brothers: Kux'Ri and Tarik. After the war between RDA and Omaticaya, they took one item I really need. Where can I find them?

"I'm sorry, but Kux'Ri is dead for about three years. He died from a thanathor attack. Tarik should be with the rest of the Omaticaya though. He can be in the main camp near the Tree of Souls or on the Floating Mountains. I don't know anything else... Please, don't hurt me..." He answered quickly.

"I really liked you, you'll live. Straight to the point, with the minimum useless questions. Keep it up and you will survive longer. Also, Gabriel McAtkins sends his regards for you, Lucy, Patrick and Norm. Take care, I've got to go. Thanks for help."

After this words, Dar pushed Max quite brutally into the bushes, leaping in the oposite direction. Before Max clambered out of the plants, Dar was already gone without leaving any trace.


	12. Part 3: Death Zone Waltz

"I've got some new info, doc." Dariusz said, trotting along on the giant roots several meters above the ground. The forest of Pandora around him turned into the breath taking mosaic of green, blue and purple spots of bioluminescence on the pitch black background of the night. The avatar running across the jungle was almost invisible, as his faintly glowing bioluminescent dots weren't bright enough to draw up his silhouette, but it was enough for him to not stand out in relief to the glow of the forest.

"That's great, if it's a good info" Dariusz heard Gabriel's voice. "So, what have you managed to... Hold on a second..." Scientist's voice was more muffled, as if he was talking in the different direction than the microphone. "Where the hell are you going, Charlie?" The sound of the hermetic lock of the steel doors of the station module in the background could be heard. "Whatever, we won't need him now anyway, maybe he had to handle himself or something." The head scientist got back to the microphone "So, what do you have?"

"First is the good news: one of my targets, Kux'Ri, is already dead for three years. The bad news is that the second one can be in two different places."

"And that is?"

"One is the so called Tree of Souls. I hope you know where it is, because I have no idea. The second one are that Floating Mountains. It is said to be the place where a bigger Na'Vi camp is located and Tarik can be there too."

"About the Tree of Souls, you would know about it if you listened to the guy who was talking about the Na'Vi history back on Earth. You've got all the data about it in your PDA. The Tree of Souls is the most sacred place for all the Na'Vi, so it can be heavily guarded. The floating mountains are also described on your PDA, quite deserted place, I must. I'm a bit surprised that some Na'Vi made a camp over there, but it can be true... What is it, Greg?" Gabriel again turned his head from the microphone, talking with a bit irritated voice.

In the background of the transmission, a second voice could be heard - quite young, male shuttle pilot, helping at the communication devices in the lab modules.

"Sir, we've got a strange scanning of the radar and some... weird stuff going on the thermovision map around our base."

"Dar, hang on a minute, I'll be back in a few moments" He said straight to the microphone "What exctely did you mean by ''weird stuff''?"

"Just look. Warm spots all around the place. These aren't animals, they would be brighter and they just appeared from nowhere."

"Maybe it's some aparatus, that just turned on?"

"Yeah, it looks like, but we don't have any that small devices around here, esspecialy in such number around the base..."

"Wait, and what is THAT?"

"Looks like... I think it's a human, sir."

"Maybe it's that moron, Charlie."

A beeping sound of an other communicator being turned on came to Dar's ears through the small speaker.

"Charlie? What the hell are you doing out there?... So what?... What "New Friends"? What are you talking about Na'Vi?... You are our engineer, you can't go... No, I can't give you our only Samson, that's just stupid... Stop talking nonsense about that Na'Vi!... Yea, sure, dream on. I'm waiting for you, if you won't come here in about..."

The second transmission was ened by the same sound as it began. Gabriel spoke again.

"He just said "boom" and rang off. What a dumba*s... Hey, wait a second... I think..." Dariusz couldn't see Gabriel's pupils spreading out in a matter of a second. "Oh my f*cking God! The whole base is mined! To all personnel, evacuate the base now! I repeat, evacuate the f*cking base IMMEDIATELY! The whole station is going to blow..."

The noice of a suddenly cut off radio transmission was the last sound he heard.

He felt to his knees. Then, to the ground.

The soil smelled with fresh dew.


	13. Chapter 13

The sound of a Samson chopper echoed on the empty landing pad between the grey buildings of Hell's Gate. It came from the direction of rising sun, like a messager of the light of the new day.

All the Na'Vi guards on the watch over the human base took the strategic positions on the rooftops, ready to unleash the swarm of two metres long stings of the poisoned arrows.

When the aircraft landed, Max Patel and Patrick Weaver -in his Avatar body - went out of the base to check what's going on.

The cockpit opened up. The only sound around was the chord drawing on every roof around the landing pad.

A single man went out of the pilot's seat. He was in his middle twenties, having black, short hair and a cheerful face, full of proud and joy. He raised his hands, implying that he is unarmed.

"Who the hell are you?!" Max said, when the rotors finaly fully stopped, allowing him to speak.

"Charles Patterns and I'm not comming to fight. On the contrary, I came here to tell you the good news. RDA sent their scouts here to gain the informations about Na'Vi again and I was one of them. They wanted to come again to Pandora to continue the torrment of the Na'Vi. But now, that won't happen anymore, as the new RDA base is already destroyed."

"Wait, you just came from nowhere to tell us about saving the Na'Vi even before the RDA attack? That's just weird." stated Patrick.

"Then where am I comming from with a fully functioning Samson?" Asked Charles cheerfully.

"If what you say is true, then how can we be sure that it isn't just a ruse and the RDA is still out there?" Max asked with a suspecting voice.

"If you want, I can show you the ashes of the base and the link station. It won't be any problem for me, I've got some fuel left. All I want is the good of Pandora."

Patrick looked at Max with confusion. Human scientist's look wasn't any different.

"Patrick, call Jake. I think he should decide what to do with this situation."


	14. Chapter 14

The smell of fresh dew was as strong as smelling salts.

His head was stinging with pain. The chilling flame embraced all of his body, causing grotesque shivering of cold.

Through the bitter cold he felt a light touch on his back.

He opened his eyes. The whole world was blury. The only thing he could see now was a small, white silhouette, climbing in the air above him.

Atokirina.

He got up on all fours somehow. Everything was spining, he felt sick like never before. When he was certain, that everything is slowly getting back to normal, he got up on legs, leaning on a nearest tree. He had no idea how he managed to not throw up.

After a few, long seconds of pure suffering, he could collect his thoughts again. He realised what happened. It was dawn already - he was lying here for all the night.

But how is it possible for him to be alive?

There was only one, possible answer: The link station somehow managed to survive the explosion!

After these thoughts, he took the fastest run he could make to their station.


	15. Chapter 15

The view was giving no hope. There was no RDA base at all now. There was no living modules, link station, magazine. Only black, burnt, arid ground, covered with bigger or smaller steel parts of the buildings.

He went between the wrecks of the modules. He felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. All of his emotions were gone. The sounds of forest muted for him. Emptyness.

A few viperwolfs leaped out from the behind of a bigger metal part, what once was a corner of the living module, and ran to the jungle. The fresh blood on their muzzles were leaving no doubt.

There were no surviviors.

He saw the lid of his link bed, lying under one of the burned trees, grotesquely bent in all directions from high temperature.

He lived, yet, he was dead.

He felt nothing. His empty heart echoed with the memory of hope for his future. For home. For family. For normal life.

It was all gone.

Gone.

He took out one of his combat knives.

He hadn't felt this feeling from a very long time.

In a moment his heart exploded with pure fire, as if all Nine Circles of Hell were pumped straight into his guts. The Devil was laughing maniacally. The Inferno in his mind was like an inhuman scream of savagely murdered Morality and Hope. He had no idea know how did he managed to survive in his Avatar body, though his own was dead. He didn't care about it now. His burning mind was overhelmed by only two words.

"Charles Patterns..."


	16. Chapter 16: Intermezzo II

Intermezzo II

"Someone said the words I have remembered for all my life: When you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace - letting go all of your memories and devotion to your life - then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth." Dar's voice was soft, like he was talking about a good, distant memory.

Jake went closer to the second Avatar, standing right next to him at the edge of the floating mountain they were on. Somehow the Na'Vi leader knew, that Dar is not going to attack him. He was glowing with a strange aura of calmness.

"That's my first sunset here I can watch peacefully. Now, when it's all over, I can finally take a breath. A one, deep breath. I don't know how did I survived. Maybe your Eywa had a purpose in it. Or maybe she has a cruel sense of humor. Imprisoning me in this body for live. Fate for the second time stroke me, this time much harder, right in the face. Taking everything from me for the second time. Family, home, dreams. And worse of all, the only thing that makes me human - Hope.

Dariusz sighted and sideglanced once more at Jake.

"You at least had the choice, either to stay in your own body or to start a new life here. You met the love of your life, Neytiri. You became Toruk Macto! The saviour of the Na'Vi! You knew you were born to be here, with the People. But no-one ever gave this choice to me. I really felt something to Elena - She was the first person I cared about from a very long time. But even before I got closer to her, fate took her away. Check. When an ocassion to start a better, peaceful life on Earth appeared, fate took it away from me also. Check. But the worst thing is that fate took my only way back to Earth, condamning me for the existance in a body I despite. Checkmate."

Again he looked at the setting sun.

"I never did anything in my life what wasn't connected with killing or fighting, exept the school. My whole life is a herald of Death - wherever I appeared, someone had to die. I wanted Pandora to be my... gateway, to the next episode of my life. The happy ending of my story. But now, I just hate this place. This... beautiful, bioluminescent torture chamber. It became my prison - like this body became the prison of my soul. This place will always remind me of everything I have lost because of that one man. Everytime I open my eyes to look at the forest, the picture of a cheerful face of Elena appears. I can hear her pearl laugh, echoing between the trees. The picture of my own, future home, somewhere on the north, where is still some green. I would buy a big orchard, where I could finally get some rest and peace. To enjoy the slack, for the first time in my life. But everything is gone now. Because of one, f*cking eco-freak, who wanted to live a new, happy life on Pandora, between the Na'Vi. For that, he killed fifteen people, including me. He never expected anyone to survive. And even when he heard that I am still alive, he tried to escape, hoping that I will give up and break. But he forgot about one, important detail. I am a Polish. We are the one of the most unforgiving and stubborn nations in the world. Also we are the first ones to fight, and we're good at it. We were the ones who saved Europe from the Turkish conquest, by stoping them in Vienna with Jan III Sobieski in the vanguard, so Europe is not speaking Arabic now. Our commander, Kaziemierz Pułaski saved the life of George Washington in the American Revolution, so you've got your America as it is now. We were fighting in both world wars from the beginning till the end, when meanwhile France and England were sh*tting bricks sitting in the farest corners of their countries. Our guerilla was fighting and turning into a nightmare the lives of our occupants, when Poland disappeared from maps for over one hundred years. We never forget, nor never forgive. That allowed our nation to survive everything in the history. And the same unforgiveness and stubborness pushed me to take my revange. It was my... hmm... duty, so to say, to turn his beautiful, brand new life into the worst nightmare - turning his Pandoran Utopia into a Green Hell."

Dar stopped, being lost in his thoughts. Jake knew the answer for his next question, but after a longer while of silence he asked it anyway.

"You were the one who did all of that to our people, right?" More stated than asked Jake. He instinctively clenched his fist on the handle of his bow, but after a second he remembered himself.

Dariusz looked at him, with an empty glance.

"Yes. I did everything you can list. My plan was simple - eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. He took my only friends. He took my home. He took my humanity and hope. He took my life. And so I had to deprive him eveything he deprived me, in the same order... Heedless of costs. I admit that I treated Na'Vi as a part of Pandora's fauna, what I am sorry for now. But all of that was necessary for me. For the beast he turned me into."

"But why didn't you just join us? For the first time you could just forgive him and use the opportunity to join the Omaticaya. Thousands of thousands of people would give anything for being in your skin when you survived your own death in your Avatar body, isolating yourself from your first one."

Dar snorted with ironic laugh.

"I can see you have never felt the real bloodlust. When I first came here, Na'Vi were neutral for me. Just some harmless savages, who posed no serious threat to the mission. But when I heard that the man who took everything from me works with them, they automaticaly turned into a potencial enemy. "A friend of our enemy is also our enemy", as my first commander used to say. I wasn't seeing hunting parties and peaceful campfires in the jungle now. I was seeing enemy patrols and outposts, guarding my target, just like several years ago in Bieszczady Mountains. In a real bloodlust you are thinking in a different way than an ordinary man. I was on war again..."


	17. Chapter 17

"Sturmbeast" * - a silent, fluent, native Na'Vi word went out of Ngrak's mouth, accompaning a short signal made with his hand, alerting the companions.

Three Na'Vi hunters were almost invisible under the tick curtain of bushes. There was no sound of the chord streching at all. A female huntress right next to Ngrak took her time to aim, the target sturmbeast will never find out what happened...

The feral eyes of the animal were utterly calm. Nothing was interrupting it's meal. The grass was so green...

It would never thought, that it will become crimson today...

"What takes you so much time?" The second male hunter asked, a bit impatient.

She didn't answer. She was a good huntress, but somehow she always felt uncomfortable near Ngrak, because he was more experianced and wiser than her. Besides she didn't liked his domineering attitude. That was making her even more nervous.

The sturmbeast suddenly rose it's head, looking around and waggling with it's ears, much more vigilant now. Something was out there. It could sense it.

A short, alarming squeal echoed throughout the jungle. The rattle was meaning only one thing - no prey tonight.

"You were too slow!" The second male hunter admonished her with a short laugh.

"I just wanted to be sure of the hit, Utrai!" She answered with a defensive tone.

"I'm not blaming you. Just pointing out your mistake, that's all, Aira, don't take it as an offence." Utrai said back, while the three Na'Vis went out of the bushes, to a small glade - the only free space between the trees - where the sturmbeast just was. "Now we can try to track it down again, it's still early enough I think"

"Wait. That sturmbeast was startled by something. It weren't us for sure, no-one made any sounds at all, also it couldn't see us, I'm certain of this. I think that something's wrong..." Ngrak interrupted them. He was more experianced than the other two.

"A Thanator?" Aira asked with an apparent respect.

"Could be, but I think it would attack us already... Let's just head back home, I don't like this at all..." Ngrak said, finishing the talk. No-one opposed him, when he went as first towards the way to their village. They stuck together, walking with a hastly pace.

But after a several steps, the leader suddenly stopped. A short, broken twitter hit the ears of the hunting party.

The crimson cloud next to Ngrak's head was like an incarnation of his spirit, evaporating in the air. He felt to his knees with no life anymore.

Even the Na'Vi skull wasn't enought to stop a bullet from the high calibre silenced pistol.

The two left hunters pulled of the arrows in a blink of an eye, searching with the tips of the arrowheads across the treetops. Utrai wiped off the red splatter from his face, uttering a frightened groan. Their quick breaths were like a bell-ringing in the dead silence around them. The air was saturating with the strong scent of blood. They were standing back to back, waiting for what happens next. The paranoia joined the game.

A rustle right behind Utrai's back startled him a bit, but then he figured out that it could just be a deeper Aira's breath.

"Aira, what should we do now...?" Utrai asked with a terrified voice.

He turned his head back to look at her. But she wasn't there anymore. She just disappeared, like she was never just recognized, opening his eyes widely in a wave of feral panic - it wasn't Aira's breath at all.

"Aira...? AIRA!" He called her, but with no answer. Only the silence was quietly listening to his panic. The dead air around him was overwhelming his mind. He started to maunder incoherently, out of pure fear. The paranoia was winning the match.

He made a dash in a paranoid reflex towards the tree which was nearest to Aira when she disapeared. He was affraid of what he might see there. But then he realised that he will never find out. He looked down.

A combat knife's blade, sticking out of his chest successfully foiled his plans.

Dar pulled his knife out of Utrai's back just to thrust it in again and again in the different parts of Na'Vi's torso with surgical precision, to be certain of a kill. When he was sure, that his work is over, he took the Na'Vi hunting dagger from the sheath on Utrai's body chest.

"Sorry man" He said casually in his native Polish. "I must burrow this for a sec. I've got to leave a message for your mates..."

Just using the ''human" names of the creatures for dialogue purposes only.


	18. Part 4: Reprise of Fallen Warriors

A severed, Na'Vi queue felt at Jake Sully's feet, triggering off a wave of shocked whispers in the crowd around the big campfire in the centre of the village.

"We've found only this after the hunting party missing three days ago." Tarik said in Na'Vi, so that everyone around him could understand "The animals have taken care of the bodies already, so there was almost nothing left to bury. Their queues were nailed to a tree with their own hunting daggers. Also on the same tree someone etched an inscription with a knife, in skypeople language: "LOOKING FOR CHARLES""

Charles Patterns with his exopack on, standing next to Jake made a step back in unbelief, opposite to Neytiri, who went forward.

"But who could do such atrocious thing? Even the first skypeople were more humane."

"Can you told us something about that, Charlie?" Jake asked with suspecting voice, turning everyone's attencion to the poor, scared newcomer. Sully knew, that Charles knows Na'Vi languae and understood what Tarik said.

"I don't know anything about it! Nobody followed me, also you saw the ruins of my base with your own eyes! No-one knows I'm here!"

"I don't appreciate the way you got rid of the RDA, but are you certain that nobody survived?"

"Yes, all of the personnel was in the base when the bombs went off. The only one outside was Dariusz's Avatar, but obviously he couldn't survive when his link station was destroyed..."

"Who's that Dariusz? And what kind of name is that?" Sully asked again. The friendly meeting was turning into a real questioning.

"He was some kind of a european mercenary. He had to kill Tarik and Kux'Ri and get one hard drive, important for the RDA"

"He was here to kill me?!" Tarik was furious for what he heard, adding some really mean Na'Vi epithets.

"Yes, but he's dead now. He was... how do you call them... a Dreamwalker, he died when his real body died..."

Their conversation was interrupted by a young hunter, running towards them. Right after he stopped, he talked with a breathless voice.

"Two bodies... east... from here..."

"Take your breath and then talk. We're not going anywhere." Neytiri said to the hunter. After a few gasps, he said:

"There are two bodies, east from here. That's horrible, their queues are..."

"Nailed to a tree?" Tarik finished for him with ironic tone.

"Yes, exactely. Also there was an inscription, but it was written in skypeople language, so I don't know what it meant..."

"But I think we know..." Jake said.

"This stranger brought the demons upon us! The souls of the skypeople he killed are getting their vengeance on us for letting this betrator live in our clan! I knew it will be a bad idea to keep this alien alive! Let's just kill him, so the demons will be pleased and leave us alone." Tarik flamed up, pulling off his dagger. The crowd of the rest of the Na'Vi cheered in a wild approval.

"No, Tarik, it's not his fault" Jake eased his mind, silencing the crowd "Maybe someone yet survived and now tries to get Charlie out of the safety of village. We're not going to kill him, as I was in a similar situation, as you can remember." Jake was thinking for a few seconds, but then he continued "Tarik, gather as many hunters as you can. I doubt it, but maybe we will be able to finish this by diplomacy. We're going out tomorrow at dawn. We've got a ''demon'' to find."


	19. Chapter 19

"...And that's how I got my own ikran." Said Patrick's Avatar , sitting cross-legged at the campfire in the centre of the tribe. He was holding a bit rusty, but still working M60 machine gun on his crossed legs. Life here was going as usually, though only several warriors stayed to guard the village while the others went ''hunting''.

"I'd like to have my own ikran too." Said Charles, sitting next to him, glancing at the fire with a pensive look. "Hey, now I know what I wanted to ask you before. What happened to the Hometree after RDA's defeat?"

"Hometree? The jungle has already taken care of it. But for the Na'Vi it's still a sacred place. It has the same meaning for them, as for instance, Iknimaya on the Floating Mountains. We can take you there if you want, when everything is finished with that moron in the woods."

A cheerless expression went onto Charles face when he reminded himself of what has he brought upon the Na'Vi.

"I don't know what to do with it. I just wanted to be like Jake. To be like the Na'Vi in this Paradise. But I'm only a dead weight for the tribe. The most of the People despite me, though they are acting like they wanted my good. I just don't know what to do to show them, that I'm not evil or anything. You know what I mean."

"I think I do. But don't worry - I know that it's not your fault. Listen - Jake, Neytiri and Tarik WILL find him. With so many hunters it's just a matter of time. Besides they've got a squad of direhorse riders, so it is impossible for him to escape"

"But what if he won't attack them, but just go right HERE?"

"How would that be possible? The've got about sixty warriors, who went out from here radiately. If he wanted to go here, he would have to fight some of our People frst, what would cause the alarm all along the hunting party."

"Let's hope so..." Charles answered. He wasn't too uplifted even by Partick's speech.

After a few seconds of silence, an agile silhouette flashed between the tents made of leather and bigger leaves used as homes, placed between the immerse trees of the jungle.

"Seen that?!" Asked Charles, jumping to straight legs in panic.

"Yea..." Answered Patrick, also getting up and holding his machine gun tighter. "Maybe it's just Lucy...?"

"You relly think so? I know Dar, he is already here. I can feel it..." Charles answered with faltering voice.

A tall Avatar went out from behind the tents with a calm pace.

"What?" Lucy asked surprised, carrying a stone bowl with some fruits. "What are you so uptight about? Do I have something on my face...?"

Charles and Patrick sighed with relief.

"No, we were just talking about that murderer and... you know, you startled us a bit." Said Charlie, sitting back and taking a fruit passed by Lucy.

Before she could answer, a small device, size of a coin, felt to the ground right in front of Charles - it was a communicator of an old type. Everyone looked immediately up, from where it came, but they saw only a tick curtain of treetops.

"I think you should take it..." Said Lucy with a bit unsure voice.

Charles stood up and placed the device in his ear. The voice he heard was familiar. The only feelings he felt now were cold sweat all over his body and way too fast pulse.

"Hi Charlie, you missed me?" Dariusz said with a neutral voice. "Now listen. Do you know a 'king of silence' game? Of course you don't, I thought of it several minutes ago. The rules are simple - I'm doing some silly things and you can't say a word or you lose. What happens when you lose? When I was in the Hell's Gate, I took this communicators and also noticed something really interesting - B2A7 in large number. I won't tell you the formula as I simply don't remamber it now. It's an explosive used in mining - even the smallest pieces of it are able to crush the hardest rocks - it has a powerfull shockwave, but gives almost no fire. And I'm holding a detonator right now. Now, I've got two informations for you: one of them can be true, and one not. Who knows. First one: Every tent in this village has a small piece of B2A7 fixed to it. In the most of tents are mothers with children and old men now - when I push the button, the tribe will literally disappear, covering the ground with a blood bath. The second information: You see, the Avatar you saw between the tents - it wasn't Lucy at all. When she was taking the fruits I put a piece of B2A7 size of a bos of matches in her pocket. I won't tell you the juicy details of what will happen. I'll just tell you, that the upper part of the torso is still alive for a several seconds, what looks really traumatic. You choose which option is more possible. Anyway, when you loose - Ka-boom, red cloud."

"What's going on, Charlie?" Patrick asked. Charles said nothing, just looked at Lucy with pure fear in his eyes.

"Good! Keep it up, mate." Commented Dariusz. "Now let's start our game with a good news - for the first time in my entire life I will tell my target exactely where I am. Look around you and try to find a tree with a bigger bough broken off, looks like a Titanothere's work. Do NOT stop your eyes at it, just locate it and scan the jungle along."

Indeed, few metres from the border of the village there was a tree he was talking about.

"Well, I'm sitting right on it, holding the detonator in my left hand and and the biggers handgun I've ever seen in my right hand. I've got just two mags, six bullets each, and there are sixteen sentinels scattered around the tribe. You will see and know which one will die and won't be able to alarm anyone. Let us start, shall we?"

The quivering surpressed any other feeling, besides of liquid terror pumping in Charles veins. Lucy and Patrick noticed it, but he didn't understand what were they asking him for. He was only hearing the voice in the headphone:

"Your 10 o'clock, the guy sitting next to the fire pit, cooking something on a stick, about twenty metres from you."

Charles immediately turned towards the said Na'Vi. In a second later, he was sliding towards the gruond, spraying the tent behind him with a redish splatter. Patrick and Lucy roused immediately, calling for an alarm in Na'Vi. Charles was standing still like a statue, petrified with fear.

"One word for you, pal: HELMET. Now, 3 o'clock, lad and lass, running towards the body."

Even before he could see them, he heard two, silenced shots. When he turned, he saw next two bodies, falling to the ground. One with a hole in his skull, second one with a much bigger hole in the place where a shoulder blade should be, what almost severed her arm off.

"Holy, sh*t, this thing seriously packs a punch..." Said Dariusz, a bit surprised. "Anyway, the guy running into an empty tent, on your right."

A young Na'Vi hunter leaped into a tent to grab his bow. Through a slit in the leather whith was an enterance, a splatter of blood bursted out.

"Headshot through an obstacle, double points"

All the sentinels of the tribe already ran up to Patrick and Lucy. Charles couldn't understand anything from a storm of Na'Vi words, but he saw Patrick pointing a general direction from where the shots were comming from, preparing his machinegun to fire. The bolt of his weapon leaped back and forth, preparing to unleash the fury of metal tempest.

"Lads next to Patrick and Lucy. Just watch..."

Next shot felt right next to Patrick's arm, hitting one of hunters into the head. But the force of the bullet was enough to pierce the first target, hitting another warrior behind him into the chest. Crimson fluid splattered on everyone in the group, eliciting a terrified shouts.

"They are like a magnet for bullets, I tell ya!"

Patrick uttered a primal, furious roar, spraying the bullets from his rifle all over the direction from where the shots were comming from. An Avatar covered in blood, lighted up by the fire of his gun was a terrifying sight for Charles.

Who could do nothing but silently cry in quiver.

"You know Charlie, a military training of an Avatar costs about five thousand new dolars." Dariusz didn't need to yell over the sound of shots, as the communicator was picking up even the tiniest sounds. "Yeah, money well spent. I'm feeling quite safe in front of his barrel. Pity he doesn't have any digital crosshair, I would stand right in the middle of it. I would feel even safer than now. Anyway, my last bullet. Whatever, let me show him something..."

The next shot didn't hurt anyone - but Patrick was thrown back, as the barrel of his gun almost literally exploded, being hit by a high caliber cartridge, making a grotesque piece of junk out of his weapon, leaving only some minor burns on his hands.

"Hey, Charles! You won! Great job! Let us start the next round, I'll just change the clip..."

"NO!"

Charles froze in panic after he realised what has he done. He was waiting in terror for what happens next.

"Eh, Charlie, I thought you will hold out longer. She was such a nice girl. Now, if you've got any last words for Lucy, go on, I'll give you a few seconds. But after that, better stand back, Na'Vi blood is ticker than human, harder to wash from clothes."

Patterns had tears in his eyes, when he looked at Lucy - such innocent and scared, covered under the leather wall of one of the tents...

"Alright, I have already escaped the tree I was on. Besides, one more thing: I lied, there is no such thing as B2A7. You could tell them where I was from the very beginning, preventing this, now pointless, carnage. See you next time."

After these words, the contact broke, leaving only a dead noise in his ear. Charles felt to his knees in helplessness.

For the first time from a long time he loudly cried.


	20. Chapter 20

The branches of the Tree of Souls were spreading over the middle of the stone cirque. Silhouettes of two Avatars were contrasting on the bright, calmative, purple light of the Elder Tree. Ends of their queues were wraped on the glowing tendrills, hanging down from high above.

They were praying together.

They were utterly alone. Omaticaya would never deface the Tree of Souls by making ordinary camps directely around this sacred place. It was always calm here.

Polyphemus was watching the pair quietly with his mighty, blue eye, killing time in his journey through the night sky in the procession of his moons, looking weak, compared to their father.

Even the jungle seemed to calm down for that few minutes of prayer, to honour the sacred moment.

The time appeared to stop. Seconds, minutes, hours... It didn't matter. Their heartbeat was the only sound they heard now. The calm, slow sound, marking the passing seconds of supplications...

The sacred silence was broken by a soft, calm and peaceful, male voice comming directly from behind with a strong, sibilant accent:

"I see you, Patrick and Lucy."

Both of the avatars sprang to their feet immediately. Patrick instincitevely reached for his gun, but it wasn't anywhere near - taking any kind of weapon to this sacred place would be offencive to the People. So they stood there, waiting for what happens next, staring in the eyes of the newcomer.

Dariusz was standing loosely, looking up with dreamy sight, to the top of the tree, where the stars were pushing their way through the ancient branches. Then he looked down and grabbed a few tendrills, watching them closely.

"I've read about this. The Tree of Souls. The place of connection between the Na'Vi and the Forest. Works like prayers in Earth's religions. I was always curious of how does it feel to connect to all of..."

"If you are telling this pointless monolugue only because it sounds bada*s before killing us, I'm warning you, that I won't beg you for mercy" - Patrick interrupted him with a defencive tone. His heart accelerated from the adrenaline assaulting his body.

Dar looked at him friendly, uncoupling his kukhri machete with it's sheath from his belt and tossing it to Patrick's feet. He took it quickly, pulling it out of the sheath and preparing for a fight. Though he wasn't any good at fist fighting or sword fighting.

Dariusz said, without paying attencion to the exposed blade:

"You can kill me if you want, I didn't intend to kill anyone of you two at all now. Besides, if I wanted to kill you, I would do it before, rather than after, warning you of my presence. Would I?"

"Then why are you here, you f*cking murderer?" Lucy tried to not look as afraid as she really was, what didn't turn out too well.

"Just to talk. It's hard to find a moment alone between you and me here, with all that racket of the whole clan around. All the more that the only thing which I was lately talking to, was the microphone of my PDA, to be honest..."

"You're asking US to talk with YOU? The psycho who slaughtered over a dozen, innocent souls out there with no point? You are just a monster and nothing more. You do not deserve to talk with anyone, you animal. Even your hissing accent resembles a snake." Partick seemed much more confident than Lucy, who rather was hiding behing him right now. His voice was showing only the nether loathing for the man standing in front of him.

"A monster. I can understand why are you calling me by that 'name'. I can utterly understand it. Though 'a snake' I'm hearing for the first time, but it's quite accurate also. And I won't deny it, because I became something less than human, I admit. It wasn't my choice at all, but it happened after all. Now I'm just a shadow of Dariusz Morawski. A monster, who lost the last sparks of hope, wandering around the darkness. A monster who lost his purpose and the last scraps of humanity which were still preventing his sanity from falling apart. Yes, I am a monster."

He took his queue to his other hand, closely comparing it's end to the tendrill's structure.

"And so my only purpose now is to hunt. This is probably my last hunt, frankly. The hunt for another monster, who did this to me. Who reminded me, that my own life was my enemy. That monster is Charles Patterns."

"He was just trying to save the Na'Vi!" Lucy shouted straight into Dar's face.

"By killing off over fifteen, also innocent people? There were only three soldiers there, all the rest were engineers and scientists, who also had families and plans for the future! He is nothing more than me. He is one of my kind now. The scar of this act will be marking the rest of his sorry existence and there is no cure for this. I even think that he is much worse than me, because as I know, he didn't feel anything after that carnage. My first murder scorched into my mind for the rest of my lifetime. Everytime I kill, I see my first victim's face, burning my sanity again and again. But if he didn't feel anythig with his first kill, he won't feel anything with every next one. He became even less than me - he became a machine."

"What are you talking about? He did it in just cause, that's..." Patrick started, but Dar immediately interrupted him.

"Just cause? There is no difference in killing in just cause or not. But I can see, that the statistics are not enough to persuade you, so let's get to the individuals. Does the name Gabriel McAtkins tell you something? He asked me to not kill you, Norm and Max, because of your friendship at the university. He was the head scientist of this expedition. I burried his remains with the rest of the crew near the blast zone. At least the remains which lasted after viperwolfs' feast. Among them was also Elena. Really nice, foxy girl, who was always cheerful, even when she was angry. Her smile was so cute. Everytime I saw it, I just wanted to hug her and smile too. It was the first thing in a long time, which was making me honestly smiling. She even liked me, as she was the only person from the staff who was seeing my personality, not my past. I burried her in a separate grave, as she was the first person I was honestly talking with, not about my job. She broke my social exile, she was building a bridge back to my sanity. Now, the only thing left after them is my empty prayer to the God who doesn't even hear me that far from the Earth."

It seemed that this approach worked better, as Patrick looked at Lucy with a tiny spark of sadness in his eye. Indeed, he knew Gabriel well. He reminded himself of his a bit ironic, but friendly laugh at the university library. His ready wit, improving everyone's humor immediately. His a bit grumpy, but funny comments about everything around. Lucy also didn't forgot him, as she only turned her sight away, trying to hide the honest tears in her eyes.

"I see you understand now. Think about it. Think about the real Charles now. He didn't deserve any friends. Just like me and any one of my kind. The race of murderers are told to be exiled." He said with a sad tone, looking down at the ground. "If you want me to stop what I'm doing to the People, you have to let me my work get done. I have to finish this, only betwen me and Patterns. The best you can do is to just exile him from the clan. I promise, that if you banish him, no more harm will be done to the Na'Vi. Please, make the right choice, as taking innocent lifes is the worst thing I can imagine, and I want to stop it as soon as possible..."

The assassin looked at the pair, then at his machete in Patrick's hands. He saw that sight and wanted to give it back to Dar quickly, but he only turned back and calmly walked away, leaving the blade in a memory of his words.

Patrick and Lucy stared, as the stranger went away.

Further prayer wasn't needed anymore.


	21. Chapter 21

Halleluyah Mountains. The place above everything else. The God's back yard. The first step to Heaven. And a nasty fall straight to Hell.

Two banshees screeched at the same moment, flying at the sides of a helicopter, making a simple convoy. The hunters on the backs of Ikrans were holding their bows ready, preparing for Toruk attack any moment now. They knew they are going to pass through the danger zone, where his nest was placed, so they had the right to feel anxious.

"All right, so that everything is clear" Jake started, sitting on the back of the chopper, to Norm and Charles, sitting on the front seats. Patterns was the pilot, carefully maneuvering between the floating mountains. " We're gonna leave you here, where we had moved the Site 26 few years ago. There is a cosy cave, where you can stay. You will keep all your equipement and the chopper with the provisions for a week, you shouldn't need more. When that psycho appears, you just call us with your communicator. We will make a camp on the nearby mountains. He won't know what hit him, when he catches few arrows in his back from above."

Patrick diddn't tell all the story of their meeting. He only limited himself to tell about the last part of conditions told by Dariusz to stop.

"Sure, Though don't you think that two hunters and you can be not enough for him?" Asked Charles, turning his head to look at Jake, who was preparing his bow at the moment.

"No worries, the surprise effect is on our side. You just have to act quickly and call us when you see him."

They were almost at the place. it was noon already, the jungle below was at full speed of it's life and sounds. Though the skies were unnaturaly calm, like right before the storm. But there were no clouds above them.

But the storm was really comming...

Few kilometers away from them, a shirtless Avatar was standing on one of the higher branches of the tallest tree down below the level of floating mountains. He was holding his PDA with camera turned for high zoom in his left hand and the pull of his combat knife, thrusted into the trunk for better balance, in right hand.

The screen was showing a helicopter and two banshees, flying between the mountains. Though the quality of image wasn't any good, it was enough to see where they are going.

_"Nice plan, Jake" _Dar said in Polish to himself, turning off his PDA._ "Really nice move. Looks like now I'll have to borrow some transport to get up there." _He started thinking while going down the tree, swiftly jumping from one branch to another._ "They will left him there as I requested, or they will set a trap, depends on what Patrick and Lucy told to the others. But I'll think about it later. For now, I have no idea how to pilot a chopper, that's for sure. So how the hell am I supposed..."_

He stopped immediately, becomming completely quiet in a second, as he heard an ear slicing screech above his head, when an Ikran zoomed right over after it's prey.

That gave him a weird idea, but it could work. He hadn't anything to lose after all, so any ideas were appreciated, even the dumbest ones.

_"That's the most stupid plan I have ever implemented in my entire life" _He told again to himself in his native language with disbelies for what is he going to do. He smiled lightly (and a bit thoughtlessly), while turning his PDA back on, searching the Pandorapedia saved on it's hard drive for informations about Ikrans and ways of hobbling one of them.

It was worth to try. It was always better to go the only way though it's wrong, than standing in the same spot or going back. Because sometimes the worng way changes into a shortcut.


	22. Chapter 22

The PDA was a great guide, showing him precisely the place, where Banshees were living and which way he could get there, using the satelite photos of the area. With his new body of a geneticaly modified Avatar, running few kilometers and climbing the roots of the floating mountain nearest to the ground wasn't a big problem at all.

Same as finding the Banshees nests.

Around one of the biggest floating mountains, a huge cloud of Ikrans was drifting near the stone, nautral walls like an oversized horde of locusts.

He didn't even try to sneak around the moss-grown rock covered with green tendrils of unnamed plants, looking straight at the whole army of ikrans, sitting in their nests on the natural platforms, sculptured into the mountain. The noise they were making was almost deafenning, stinging the ears with the power of a burst from an assault rifle straight into the brain. The popular name 'Banshee' was indeed accurate.

If the PDA was right, the Na'Vi hunter had to make a connection called 'Tsahaylu' ("Who's comming up with the names here?") while fighting the Ikran, which tried to simply kill him. It was never easy and some ''duels'' were lasting for a long hours, if both hunter and Ikran were in a good condition.

The Na'Vi way was usually hard. The Pragmatic-Assassin-in-Hurry-Who-Doesn't-Give-a-Sh*t way looked prety much different.

Dariusz turned his head around, streching his neck, while pulling off one of his knifes, holding it upwards. He didn't plan to use the blade itself. This time at least.

He was moving slowly, approaching Ikrans one after another, as the PDA said before, looking for the right one. One after another was just leaving their nests and flying away from the weird stranger. Some of them also shrieked right into his face, willing to tell him straight, that they do not appreciate his trespassing on their ground, before getting away from their posts.

The minutes were passing on aimless wandering around the rock, startling innocent Banshees and yelling short cries in trying to achieve the effect described by the digital guide.

All for nothing. After about half an hour of fruitless hamming before Ikrans, frustration reached the top of the scale.

"Come On! I Don't have all day!" He yelled desperately into the aether.

Again, no effects.

"A jebał was pies, pierdolone ptaszyska...* " He grunted in his native language. "I'll find myself a chopper and find out how to pilot it sooner than finding a matching bird."

But then he heard a Banshee shriek other than the ones he heard before. This one beamed with a pure aggresion, comming right from behind.

"Hey! Yet one of you has the balls" He smiled ominously, while turning around slowly.

An Ikran with deep blue spots all around his cyan body was looking straight into his eyes, hanging on a sheer, stone wall.

"So here's our lucky customer!" Dar stated, preparing to avoid it's first attack.

Ikran shrieked one more time, then it leaped to the horizontal surface. It's strategy wasn't any sophisticated, especialy for an animal.

Assassin dodged the meteoric, straight strike of the mouth full of dagger-sharp fangs, using the moment of uncoverness of the Ikran to jump onto it's neck and shoulders. Banshee didn't agree for that ride in any case, trying to throw Dar off it's back in wild skips, spins and smashes on walls and surface of rock, frequently entwinning it's savage combo with bites and scratches of it's claws.

In this point, the Na'Vi way and Dariusz way were going into two, different directions. Skipping all the pacifistic part of tiring the Ikran by this wild rodeo, hopelessly trying to hit it's antennae with his queue, three, powerful smashes of a massive, blunt kife hilt straight into the back of Banshee's head shortened the work greately, knocking the beast down almost immediately. Stunned Ikran felt to the ground with empty sight, showing no resist at all now.

This gave Dar the time he needed for grabbing a few, deep breaths, placing himself comfortably at Banshees back, holding it's antennae and his queue with one hand and his flat, metal bottle of water in the second hand.

"I hope it works" Dariusz said with doubtful optimism in his voice. "And i hope I didn't kill him"

He poured the liquid straight onto Ikran's head. It looked like it worked, as the beast groaned silently, slowly rising it's head from the ground and trying to make out what's going on around, after waking up with a huge headache.

In the same moment it felt a stark storm of thoughts, trying to break outside of it's head like a hurricane.

The assassin felt the same, when the Tsahaylu was made for the first time in their entire life. After a short second, the storm was gone, leaving the void of cold, clear, connected minds. Utter silence embraced both minds, making them one.

"Wow... that was... extraordinary..." Dar mumbled, trying to pull himself together. The post-stun effects affecting his Ikran had to make their way also into his mind.

"I knew what should I expect, but... Wow..."

Ikran stood still, also investigating the new experiance, just like it's rider.

"So, you're a girl. You know, sorry about that brutal hit." He explained, feeling the thoughts of his new friend, also feeling her aversion to him "I didn't want you to rip my head off and pi*s down my neck, that's all. If you know what I mean..."

Banshee answered with a short, this time more friendly shriek (which also could be considered as a short laugh in a performance of an Ikran), exactely knowing what is he feeling now, knowng also his intentions.

"I won't bother you for long, don't worry. I just need some help getting onto one of these rocks up there. After that I'll let you go free. At least none of that savages down there will bother you either for the rest of your life, if you can connect only with one person for the lifetime." He added cheerfully, tapping her neck gently. "So... let's fly, I think."

He said it loudly, though he read that he didn't need to. Ikran listened, more launching herself into the air than ordinary starting. Dariusz holded himself tight, trying to remember what the PDA was saying about steering a Banshee, skipping in mind all the scientifical nonsense which wasn't needed now.

"SLOWLY, DAMN IT!" He thought loudly in Polish, when they started diving at full speed towards the ground far below. Ikran listened, slowing down to a comfortable glide. Now he could put together his thoughts "Phew. Thanks, that's much better."

He wasn't an ace of the skies, but he quickly caugh the basic method of streaming his thoughts into commands. Though he was honestly affraid of aerial stunts and rushing, he was able to control the direction of flight in a quite slow and monotonous manouvres.

What was frankly pissing the Ikran off.

He felt the irritation of his mount, streaming through the queue.

"Hey, I know that you're bored, but I'm not the one who spent all his life flying, OK?" He explained, what calmed his Ikran down a bit. "You know, I think I should call you somehow" He proposed. "How about ' Roach* ' ?"

Ikran thought a bit about it, but then stated in thoughts that she doesn't really care, how will he be calling her. 'Roach' was OK then.

"That's cool, Roach. I think it's better than calling you ''the Ikran'' all the time. Besides... Nice to meet you."

*[pronounced: "A yebaw vas pies, pierdolone ptashiska"] Something like: "F*ck you, you piece of sh*t birds!" (sorry, couldn't resist not putting it in original )

* "Roach" was the name of every single horse Geralt the Witcher was mounting in his entire life (in the book saga, the game doesn't mention any horses at all)


	23. Chapter 23: Intermezzo III

Intermezzo III

"God doesn't hear us that far from the Earth" Dariusz said. "I realized it recently. This is Eywa's district and she is a pimp here, not God."

Jake smiled for this 'colorfull' metaphor.

"So why won't you start praying to Eywa then?"

"God. Eywa. What's the difference? Both of them never tamper the world of the living. They are just the keepers of the Afterlife. They are no Genies that are fullfilling wishes. I'm not talking about miracles, but normal prayers. People are often making a mistake when they are praying. 'God, give me a new car. Amen'. 'God, help me win at the lottery. Amen'. 'Please, God, help me get a promotion at work. Amen'. And I'm seriously praying for the souls of the people I had to kill. Though I prayed for the Na'Vi who died that day, I don't think God listened to it, because they are under the protectorate of Eywa. And if Eywa takes care of them, they are judged right in the moment of death, so I can do nothing about it."

Dar kneeled down, giving some rest for his legs. The horizon was floated with crimson, from the blood of the sun, drowning behind the line of mountains, trying to grab them with it's last, desperate beams.

"Now I don't know what should I think about it. I don't even know if I remember how to think in my 'old' way. I think I have changed" Then he corrected himself: "Of course I have changed. I'm feeling like I'm... divided into two persons now. One is Dariusz Morawski, who just doesn't care anymore about anything and the second one is... I don't know... it's just... something, deep in my mind. Like a parasite..."

"Have you been thinking whether you're insane?" Jake asked with unnoticeably laugh.

"Insane you say? Hmm... I never really thought about it that way... Maybe you're right. Or maybe I'm just a stereotypical, headstrong and stubborn Pole, who just doesn't forgive? Or maybe both?" He thought to himself loudly. "I don't think it will change anything though. Crazy or not, What was done cannot be undone."

After these words he sideglanced at Jake.

"You know, sometimes there is a moment in your mission, when you don't care that you're doing a completely stupid thing to achieve your goal. You know what I mean?"

Jake smiled minutely and answered with a doze of irony:

"Tell me about it. I was the one who leaped to the back of Toruk without thinking about the consequences if I failed."

"See? Everybody's crazy sometimes, adequately to the situation. But I'm glad you understand it. 'Meeting' my Ikran was one of these moments. I realized also, that Roach was my only friend here, though we knew each other very shortly. Few hours of acquaintance wasn't long, but at least now I know what did they mean by saying that 'Tsahaylu is even better than sex' in Pandora promotional vids back on Earth"

He looked up at the gargantuan moon, floating over their heads slowly.

"I really liked her. She was the only 'person' who could understoand me well without stupid questions or looking at me like on an abomination. When she was looking into my thoughts, she was considerating my 'job' as something normal, what every preadator does in his life. Killing was a typical part of life of the carnivores. I was a bit in a whirl, whether I felt to the level of an animal, or just perfected the the way of killing, the completely natural thing after all. Or maybe the whole Humanity went the wrong way and I'm the only one walking the right, naturalistic one, following the nature? How do you think? Should I be proud or ashamed?"

"It depends" Jake answered carefully. "If you are doing it for the greater good, then it turns out to be good. But when you are doing it generally for pleasure, it's evil. Simple."

"Good or Evil?" He asked with an empty tone "There is no good at all. There is only the Perspective you're looking through on the problem. Relatively only a choice between few, lesser evils. Grey or grey. Otherwise tell me: What I did was Good or Evil, knowing ALL the truth about him now...?"


	24. Chapter 24

"First hour has just tolled. I think that we're getting close to him" Dariusz told to Roach, gliding over a tick myst below them, floating between the giant rocks. "His chopper must be somewhere near, I can tell"

Roach didn't even listen to him. A whole hour of monotony was making her dazed with boredom. Dar even thought for a short while that she just cut herself an aerial nap.

They drifted up, to go over the higher placed floating rocks.

"I think I saw something..." Dariusz stated, narrowing his eyes. But as fast as he noticed it, he ahered to Roach's neck and back, being harder to see.

"Sh*t! Na'Vi hunters, five o'clock" He whispered in a flap. "They prepared a trap. He has to be even closer than I... Ha ha! There you are!" He said proudfully, seeing a Samson, parked on a grassland far below, right next to the entrance of a cave on one of the mountains. "Right beneath us. Start going down in a calm spiral, just don't do anything suspicious..."

When they were about several metres above the helicopter, Dariusz said:

"Thanks for your help, that's all I wanted. Farewell friend. Be free, and make a big family." He added jokingly.

When he was unplugging his queue, the last of Roaches thoughts he felt was something between sadness and miss for him. That one thought shocked him suprisingly.

Someone will actually miss him.

He didn't feel this feeling for so long. He even forgot that something like this actualy exists.

It was like waking up from a very long coma.


	25. Chapter 25

The grass waved under his feet, when he landed lightly right next to the helicopter. An echo of twanging apparatus insinde the cave made it's way to Dar's ears. While he was standing there, he could hear Charlie's nervous voice, talking to the microphone:

"...the RDA team has been destroyed, though the avatar of that mercenary somehow survived and now is right on his way to kill me. Jake tries to help me, but I don't know if he can handle that beast. I also have that hard drive you asked me, transfering the data to my computer. I will send them later, when the generator warms up. Charles Patterns out."

The assassin waited for him to finish. That could be some useful info. Right after the transmission, he took a deeper breath.

"So, let us finish this" Said Dariusz to himself, pulling off his blade and silenced gun.

When he was striding toward the cave, he made a point of driving his knife casually into one of the vital parts od helicopters bonnet, just like he was doing it back in the enemy bases on the frontline. Now he could be sure, that nobody will fly with it anymore.

Someone inside the cave had to hear it, as a masked in an exopack head looked out from the deeps.

"Holy fuck!" A short swear felt from the masked man, as the head hid again, this time much more faster.

The killer could hear an incoherent mumbling. The same as he could hear a long time ago. It was the sound he knew so well...

The corrosive sound of pure Fear.

He proceeded silently into the cavern.

Few computers were placed at the far end of the cave, standing on a table. Right next to it, cringered, was sitting Charles himself, seizured by panic in his empty eyes. He almost forgot about the communicator, lying on the table right next to him. He looked even smaller and weaker from the point of the tall Avatar's view. He resembled a cub, left to fall a prey of a bloodlust predator.

A barrel, lenghtened by a silencer wandered to meet Charles' head through the sight.

"Get up" A short command could be heard.

The assassin didn't hear anything what could be considered as a full sentence. Just more chaotic, paranoidal muttering. He could cleary see the tears in Charlie's eyes through the fogged oxygen mask.

"Get up. Now."

He somehow made it to stand up on trembling legs. He felt sick, he thought he could throw up any second now. He looked at the communicator, reminding himself of what he had to do. But by the look of the threaded jaws of the gun knew it's way too late.

"Get out of the cave. Slowly." The assassin commanded with a deadly voice.

Charles felt like he was walking to meet his own execution, when the mercenary leaded him to the very edge of the grassland, showing him the bottomless oblivion beneath.

"I've got only five rounds in my gun, so won't shoot you." Assassin stated, walking closer to Charles.

Charlie closed his eyes in fright. He felt a stone of fear, stuck in his throat. The legs were like carved in gel, the seizures scattered all around his body. He couldn't think at all. His mind was turned only to the most primal instincts now.

"They say the gravity here is low enough for a Na'Vi to survive almost any fall, if he lands on something soft. I have no idea how is it working with human race, but humans don't have any carbon fiber in their bones or anything to help them survive such an experiance, what cuts some chances off." After a while he added. "I always wanted to feel the blast of the air on face, when you are falling like a bullet straight towards the ground, being deafened by the roar of pure momentum around you. That must be unforgettable for sure."

Charles surmised what will happen with him now. So that was the end.

"I think you know what am I about to do. So why won't you just skip all my climatic jawing and jump there by youself already?"

Charles was at the very border of snapping. He just stood there, sobbing and looking thoughtlessly into the abyss.

The sun was going down.

"If you don't want to do this by yourself, I can make another deal." Assassin proposed. "From the very beginning I badly wanted to skin you alive, then cut your limbs and tongue off and look at your torment until you bleed to death or some banshees came to you, lured by the smell of blood."

He didn't look like he was joking at all, comming closer to his prey, preparing his blade for work.

Charles screamed shortly and tried to stand back insinctively.

He forgot that there was no ground behind him anymore.

The killer looked with a devilish smile and a spark of tormenter in his eye at the falling man, getting smaller with every second. His frightened scream could be heard in all the flating mountains, reflecting it's echo throughout the rocks.

The Na'Vi hunters above him had to hear it. If they took their banshees, they could save him.

And the assassin didn't want it to happen.

He leaped to the edge of the rock, aiming his gun straight down, firing three, silent shots in the falling victim's direction. At least one of the bullets hit the target, as the scream died away, when a red trail appeared after Charles. Dar couldn't see precisely the effects of his shot, but as he saw what this gun could do with a Na'Vi, he didn't hope for Charles falling to the ground in one piece.

It was over.

Dariusz sat clumsily right in the place he stood. He felt a weird vertigo of thoughts. He hid his face in hands, trying to collect his thoughts again.

The Na'Vi hunters on their banshees, diving straight down didn't matter now.

The battle cries were silent.

The air was heavy and sticky.

The sun was shining much darker than usual.


	26. Chapter 26

Two of the banshee riders dived along to catch up with Charles. The rest, that is, three hunters and Jake landed around Dariusz sitting on the ground, neglectfully looking into the emptyness in front of him at the edge of the botomless cliff.

Hunters in no time prepared their bows, aiming them straight into Dar's back. Jake pulled the bow chord too, walking carefully closer.

"How's Charles? You've got him?" Jake asked through his neckle communicator in Na'Vi.

"Dead. No chances of survival" A short, Na'Vi answer was given.

Dariusz lifted his eyes to the sky, then closed them. All the Na'Vi and Jake were completely confused, when he sang silently in Polish, with calm, melancholic voice. They had no idea what is he singing about, what was making them even more confused.

"One day. One day, the Sky cracked

And an awful rain came down

Then someone shouted

And chilness engulfed all the hearts

And fear appeared in eyes

People shaked their knives, instead of hands

And burned the birds..." *

They let him finish, not sure what were they supposed to do. Fingers were getting numb from holding the arrows ready to shoot. When he felt silent again, Jake said, with the voice full of concern:

"What shall I do with you now?"

"Kill me, torture me, imprison me, burm me alive, sacrifice me..." Dariusz's voice was puerily neutral, like he was talking about his memories. "I don't care anymore. Just tell your men to finish the job. But before you end my torment, check the last transmission from Charles' computer. It was meant to be sent to Brusseles, the European Union HQ."

Jake lowered his bow, though he still conserved his awareness, showing interest to what the assassin just said.

"What do you mean?"

"He was sending THIS data" He tossed the RDA most important hard drive. "about everything RDA did here. If he made it, the whole Resource Department would be liquidated immediately."

"And what?" Jake asked confident of his rights "He would destroy that galactic leech once and for all"

"You think that the EU would do it for the greater good of the galaxy without their own buisness in it?" Dar asked ironicaly "European Union is in the biggest debts they ever had and they need a new source of capital. They would just take over RDA assignments." He also added: "That all precious unobtanium didn't disappear from Pandora after RDA was defeated here."

"You're claiming that Charles tried to make a second war with human race here, like the RDA?"

"Maybe not war. Not intent. EU has more strict law that the RDA, so I think there would be peace. For some time."

Sully looked at the hard drive he was holding.

"No, he wouldn't do it. He loved the Na'Vi and the forrest too much to do such thing."

"And how do you think, what the first RDA scientists were thinking when they arrived here? They had to be eco-freaks too. But they are not in charge of the military. These are always some greedy bastards who don't give a sh*t for anything but money. I'm sure that when the conflict would break out for the second time, Charles would join the Na'Vi forces, that's for sure. But it would be already too late. Any kind of contact between Human and Na'Vi race will end the same, old way."

Jake loosen his arrow on the chord. Dar continued with a shadow of a smile, without noticing that move.

"Then looks like I even made a first good work. It's like... a nice accent for the end of my life."

He stood up, dusting off his hands from dirt. All three hunters streched themself in a nervous reflex, this time aiming for Dar's head.

"You can tell them I'm not going to kill anyone. I fulfilled my work." He said calmly to Jake.

Avatar hunter looked at his men, then translated what he said. Though they tried to protest, they lowered their weapon. Somehow he felt, that Dariusz is no longer a danger.

"So, will you finish this already? It would spare me some work with getting rid of this body, so that I'm finaly dead, as I should be" Dar said, looking straight into Jake's eyes

Jake thought about the truth Charles was hiding. He wanted to know some more about what really happened.

"I won't kill you." He finaly stated. "Tell me more about what happened."

"Trust me, it's a long story."

"We don't need to hurry." He answered, giving his men the signal to leave them alone for a while, as he has everything under control.

"As you wish..."


	27. Epilogue: At the Edge of the Future

EPILOGUE

The sun has disappeared, leaving Pandora in darkness of the night. The bioluminescene of the forrest was in the full bloom, making it almost impossible to tell the difference between any obects below. The ground was just a mozaic of lights on the pitch-black canvas.

"And that's all, I think" Dar said to Jake, turning back at the abyss. "That's the whole story. Three years on the frontline. Eight as a paid assassin. Two hundred and twenty enemy soldiers killed, aproximetely. Fifty seven suply depots destroyed. Fourty six assassin's assignments on different targets, eleven of them eliminated with a ranged weapon. Six Na'Vi civillians killed. And one Charles Patterns..."

Dariusz sighed, like he just ran a few hundred kilometers with a wild sprint.

"I thought that killing Patterns will bring me peace. The feeling I wanted to feel for so long. But nothing happened. It didn't brought me the happiness I thought about. I feel like... it never happened at all. I don't know how to describe this experiance. It's like... like I still had something to do. Though I have already achieved all I wanted, before my existence in this body becomes pointless. I hoped, that right after my work is done, I will take a deeper breath, freely, waiting for your men to place a few arrows in my back, sparing me some work. Or maybe a whole lot of arrows, from every direction. That would be truely epic."

"Maybe you feel like that, because some part of you wants to stay here?" Jake asked "Maybe you don't want to die really?"

"Maybe your right. That must be that damn instinct of survival. But I won't stay here. Living a pointless live full of danger in the jungle, fighting for survival every single day and eating roots for the rest of my life? No, thanks. It's not for me."

"You don't need to live in the jungle all alone" Jake said, looking a bit nervously around. "Look, after what you said, revealivg the truth, I can let you stay in the tribe. I can tell the others that you are really a hero, I'm sure we can think of something. I am offering you this, because when I'm looking at you, I can see myself, as I was at the beginning of my life here, as an Avatar..."

Dar glanced at him ironically.

"Me? In your tribe? I don't think so. You can protect me, but you can never erase what the others are thinking. For them I will always be a murderer. A stranger. They will never accept me. No heroic acts can hide the fear of me. I don't even like wilderness. It forever biten into my mind as an enemy. No one can be safe here. I can find no peace in the jungle, even between the Na'Vi. Besides, can you imagine me, a profesional killer, sitting with the blue guys around a campfire, singing 'We are the world, we are the children' together? No, it's not my life. I would feel awful, if I had to come back to society with all my reflexes and memories, consisting of murder, suffering and death. And cleaning the blades from dry, sticky blood. I have almost no good memories. I would be no use for your happy society. I would be just a clot in your healthy circulatory system of the Na'Vi. I always dreamt of being someone else. But it will never hapen. I'm bound to my fate until the end of the world. The end of my own world..." Then he thought for a while in silence, glancing at the horizon.

He stood much closer to the edge.

"They say the gravity of Pandora lets the Na'Vi to survive almost every fall, if they land on something soft. That gives about, let's say, fifty percent of survival chance."

"I think I know what you are trying to say." Jake stated shortly.

"If I survive, I will think of what to do then. If that happens, then maybe you're right and all that Eywa wants something more from me than preventing a new peril from comming upon Pandora and wats me to stay in this jungle. If I won't survive, then I was right and I will have some rest at last."

"I believe I know what are you feeling right now. I won't stop you. As I think, trying to save you will just make it all more painfull"

"Thank you for understanding. So..." He looked at Jake for the last time with a friendly smile. "Farewell, friend."

He sliped slowly, canting over the edge, loosing his balance.

The blast of the air. The roar of the wind. Line of the horizon, getting higher every second. He always dreamed of feeling it; dashing straight towards the ground with no fear of what will happen next.

He smiled in solace.

It's true what they say. Only moments in our life are beautiful.

It's the only thing worth living for.

After a few seconds Dar was too far in the darkness of the abyss below to see him.

Jake sighed and turned away. He wanted to call his men and get back home at last. Also tell everyone what really happened.

But suddenly his ear cough something.

He thought he heard a silenced shot down below, muffled by the distance and powerful wind.

No, it must've been only his imagination.

Or just the wind. He only needs some rest. Maybe it was only his tiredness, toying with his mind.

The Pandora's Box has been closed again...

...Forever...

Unkle - Burn My Shadow


End file.
